


Against All Odds

by aquabelacqua



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Big Brother Mycroft, Drug Addiction, Flashbacks, Giveaway fic, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Lestrade-centric, M/M, One Night Stand, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Protective Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Tumblr Prompt, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7573186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquabelacqua/pseuds/aquabelacqua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For my 100 followers giveaway - this is giveway fic #1:</p>
<p>The lovely @lmirandas asked for, "A Mystrade fic, in which they had a one night stand in Uni and clicked but then never saw each other again until they meet because of Sherlock's drug habit,"</p>
<p>I hope this delivers, my love! <3</p>
<p>Thank you to my *wonderful* betas: shamlessmash and dizzyfrizzydana, and to IamJohnLocked4life who was both beta _and_ Brit-picker. Anything right? All them. Anything wrong? All me.</p>
<p>_____________________________</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <strong>Amazing update!</strong> miamam on Tumblr was kind enough to translate this fic into Czech. HOLY AWESOME!!! The link is <a href="https://johnlockpositive.wordpress.com/2016/09/27/tohle-by-ani-nemelo-byt-mozny">here</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against All Odds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lmirandas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lmirandas/gifts).



 

_London—September, 2000._

Sergeant Greg Lestrade rolled the body face up in the narrow alley behind the old ale house and said a silent prayer of thanks that the Mullandy gang had already moved on to points north. In death, the kid was blue and bruised but still oddly striking. He was handsome enough, certainly, that even with greasy hair and arms dotted liberally with needle marks, Ferg Mullandy would have buggered his unconscious arse with the fat end of his walking stick just to watch him bleed out in the alley. He supposed it didn’t matter—the boy had met the same end either way—but despite years of exposure, Greg hadn’t yet lost his sensitivity to sex abuse cases so it was a small relief to find the boy’s corpse unviolated. _Poor sod_.

Greg pressed the tips of his fingers to the kid’s jugular almost as an afterthought and when he felt a pulse throb weakly under his touch, he nearly fell backward in shock, barking out orders for an ambulance, a blanket, CPR.

_Jesus_ , he thought wildly, his heart whamming against the back of his ribs in terror and triumph. _Against all odds, that_.

\-----

After his partner, Marie, a lovely, stout girl with strong fingers and stronger lungs, had breathed life back into the boy, Greg sat with him while the ambulance inched its way down the narrow mouth of the alley. He rested a gentle hand on his back while the boy shook and took sobbing gulps of water from a paper cup, and he could feel the kid’s shoulder blades jutting out like the nubs of sawed-off wings.

“There, now,” he said softly. “That’s a good lad. Can you tell me your name?”

“He’s going to kill me,” the kid moaned, his inky, unwashed curls framing his terrified eyes like a mask. “I made a list but it won’t matter. He’ll _kill_ me this time.”

“Nobody’s going to kill you. Can you tell me anything about how you got here tonight?”

But the boy couldn’t stop shaking, looking up and around at the edges of the buildings, his eyes sweeping from rooftop to rooftop as if searching for a malevolent figure who would jump down and snatch him away. Greg followed his gaze upward but saw nothing save the unblinking eyes of CCTV cameras. If they’d been anywhere near a cathedral, Greg would have thought he was still high as a kite and frightened of the gargoyles. He made another gentle pass across the boy’s bony shoulders.

“Is there anyone we can call to come for you after you’ve been seen by the medics?”

The boy seemed to snap to attention at that, looking at Greg for the first time since regaining consciousness, his unearthly, chameleon eyes drilling into Greg’s with such focus that he was afraid to glance down lest he’d find he’d been stripped of his badge, his clothes—hell, his _humanity_ —under the boy’s gaze.

“How long have you been married, Sergeant?” he asked, his formerly timid voice suddenly deep and clotted. _Is this bloke possessed?_ Greg wondered, and mentally crossed himself.

“Uh, just under a year.”

The boy’s gaze was unwavering.

“Won’t last another, I’m afraid. Your dedication to the force and your wife’s ever-wandering eye will see to that.”

He threw off the blanket and stood, all sign of his shaky limbs gone. He shoved a ball of paper into Greg’s hand and then stalked past Marie and the DI in charge before sliding into the open door of a quiet black car that had been idling, unseen, by the kerb.

“Oi,” Greg shouted, too late, standing up so fast he nearly tripped on the boy’s discarded blanket. “You can’t just—”

“Actually, he can, Sergeant,” a smooth voice said by his ear. Greg whipped around and blinked in astonishment. There was a man standing in the alleyway where moments before it had been empty. He was tall, slim, fastidiously dressed, leaning on an umbrella. His pose appeared casual although Greg noticed his knuckles were white where they gripped the handle.

Greg shook his head. He was new to the force but not to law enforcement and certainly not to bullies, no matter how poncy they appeared. “Sorry, mate. Who the fuck are you?”

“An interested party,” the ponce said and gave a twirl of his umbrella. Greg backed up a step, putting a few critical metres between them. The man may have been dressed like a bank president but a weapon was a weapon, no matter how innocuous.

“Interested in what?” Greg asked, wary.

“In making sure justice is served, of _course_ ,” the man said, his voice dripping with fake concern. “But as this is a family matter, I’ll have to ask you to entrust me with its carrying out.”

“Not a chance,” Greg said. “I’m doing my job—”

“And I’m doing mine, Sergeant,” the man cut in. Then he plucked the paper from Greg’s fingers. “This,” he said crisply, “is for me.”

Greg watched while he uncrumpled the ball, a tremor of worry crossing his face before it settled back into blankness.

There was something strangely familiar about him, something buried underneath the layers of twattishness and buffoonery, and it kept Greg from doing the job he’d just asserted he was doing. He should slap cuffs on the man, tear the paper from his hands, and arrest him for tampering with evidence and blocking a police investigation.

( _He almost had it. Something about ginger waves, a head tipped back in loose, easy laughter_.)

Instead, he stood in silence watching the man’s eyes travel the length of the page several times as if committing the contents to memory. Then he folded the paper neatly into quarters and tucked it into a small book which disappeared just as neatly into his suit jacket.

_Ah_ , Greg thought, connecting the dots. _He doesn’t want to_ kill _you, lad. He wants to_ protect _you_.

The man with the umbrella focused on the ground, and for a brief, absurd moment, Greg wanted to reach out for the second time that evening and rub comforting circles into a stranger’s back.

( _Not a stranger though, really_ , _is he?_ )

When the man looked back up, Greg knew him for who he was—who he _had been_.

 

 

_Leicester—April, 1991_

“God, this mad ruff,” he said, grinning, and pushed Greg’s fringe back from where it had flopped over one eye. “Lovely.”

Greg smiled back—it was impossible not to. He’d only just met Myc but Greg was already feeling his atoms rearrange themselves around him a little. Just enough to frighten him.

“I’m losing mine,” Myc continued ruefully, and stroked Greg’s scalp. Greg leaned into the touch for a moment, an oversized housecat, and then pulled his hand down to kiss the inside of his wrist, the cup of his palm.

“You’re not,” he murmured against the man’s skin, running his lips over blue veins and life-lines. Myc shivered and closed his eyes briefly, and Greg could see a sprinkling of freckles standing out against the pale skin of his long nose. When he paused, Myc opened his eyes again and his expression teased.

“You’re going to have to practice those powers of observation if you ever want to make detective.” He pulled back his own fringe with his free hand, the gingery strands twining around his fingers—Greg watched them wink and glow in the lamplight—and tilted his head down. Greg could, in fact, see the hairs growing finer at his temples but he scoffed anyway.

“I don’t see a thing. And what do you mean, ‘detective’? I’m here for rugby, I’ve told you. Been scouted and everything.”

Myc smiled wider and Greg could see something shark-like in it. Then he leaned forward again, crowding Greg against the headboard, and kissed him softly but with just a bit of teeth. He ran a long-fingered hand up the length of Greg’s thigh and Greg hummed into his mouth. Against his lips Myc murmured, “Watch out for this leg during practice. I can feel you favouring it when it’s wrapped around me.”

 

 

_London—September, 2000_

Mycroft looked…older. Not just the years of world-weight that pulled his shoulders down and gave him that frankly ridiculous posture, but something that smacked of too much responsibility, a life in chains of some sort or the other. He was doing his best to keep it out of his face—if Greg had never seen him flushed and wild and happy, he’d never have known this was a mask—but his smile, once a joyous thing, was now twisted and sardonic. Even his formerly glorious auburn waves were almost colorless, shorn and slicked into submission.

Greg shoved his hands into his coat pockets, a subtle shift away from his weapon, and the man— _Myc_. _No_ , _Mycroft_ , Greg thought—relaxed his grip on the umbrella.

“Friend of yours, then?” Greg asked, jerking his head in the direction of the town car.

“My...charge,” Mycroft responded with care.

“Name?”

Mycroft arched an eyebrow but Greg pushed ahead. “Gonna have to write this up one way or another, mate.” _How could he not know? How could he have forgotten?_ “Better here than down at the station.”

The man laughed. It was ugly, haughty sound and Greg had to force himself not to turn away. Best to meet this head-on.

“We’re not going anywhere, Sergeant.”

“Course we’re not,” he said, matching Mycroft’s wry tone with an artificially convivial one. “We’re doing this here, all friendly like.”

Mycroft stole a look at the car behind him. His features contracted slightly and Greg thought, _Got you._

Greg leaned in and said, “Terrible, aren’t they? Little brothers?”

The man considered Greg. Pursed his lips.

“They can be.”

“Mine’s a tosser. Drives us all mad, drinking and carousing. But I watch out for him anyway. Just like you do yours.”

“Is there something else I can do for you, Sergeant, ah—?”

Greg held out his hand. Mycroft examined his fingers as if they were covered in boils and then pressed his palm against Greg’s. _Electric_.

“Lestrade,” he said, pulling Mycroft forward with an iron grip. “Though it was just ‘Greg’ last time we met.”

 

 

_Leicester—April, 1991_

 Rugby practice was out, at this rate. His legs still felt rubbery from the night before—his left, especially—and there was no chance he’d last the full five kilometer run at the start. _Besides_ , he thought, rolling over and burying his face between freckled shoulder blades, _there’s this_.

“What time is it?”

Greg heard the words floating back to him over Myc’s shoulder.

“Don’t care,” he mumbled against Myc’s skin, tracing his fingers over taut abdominal muscles, the jut of hipbones. Greg felt the laugh under his fingers and mouth, though no sound reached his ears. He kissed down Myc’s spine, feeling his lips bump up and over each vertebra until the bones disappeared into the curve of his low back. Then he started in the opposite direction. Myc sighed, a bone-deep sound of contentment that Greg wanted to _taste_.

Then he sat up quickly, nearly spilling Greg off the bed.

“What’s wrong?” Greg asked. But Mycroft’s face was stone, his blue eyes flat, calculating.  Greg could hear a high buzzing whine somewhere outside of their immediate orbit. Mycroft stood, whipping off the top bedsheet and wrapping it around his waist, exposing Greg to the elements.

“Oi! What—”

But Myc was out the door before Greg could even sit up.

“Shit,” he hissed and leaned off the side of the bed for his pants.

When he was half-dressed, Greg leaned out the bedroom door and peered down the corridor. Myc had his ear pressed to the receiver of the dormitory telephone, an ugly beige box that was famous for cutting out partway through the first years’ heartfelt pleas home for cash. Myc’s back was to him but Greg could still see the tension in his limbs, the absolute rigid control of his posture. Even through his worry, Greg could appreciate the beauty of Myc’s body half-hidden by the sheet, the way his back tapered into a narrow waist and then flared back out into a lush bottom. Myc’s shoulders drooped suddenly and Greg felt his heart fly into his throat. The handset made no noise at all when he slipped it onto the base of the phone.

Greg ducked back into his room, flesh rising into bumps on his arms and legs. _Goose walked over my grave_ , he thought. He arranged himself on the bed in a posture of nonchalance but Myc barely glanced his way upon re-entry. Instead, he began dressing silently, pulling up socks and trousers, running his hand through errant waves to flatten them, and worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

“Everything all—”

“Yes, thank you,” Myc cut in smoothly. “We’ll talk soon.”

Greg knew a blow-off when he heard one.

“Oh, yeah? You gonna call me?”

To his credit, Myc stopped tying his shoe and looked up at Greg.

“My situation is…complicated.”

“Aren’t they all?” Greg countered.

“Some more than others, I’m afraid.”

“Could have told you that,” Greg chuckled humourlessly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re afraid,” Greg said. “We got a good thing started and now you’re running off. It’s fear, that is.

“Yes, thank you so much for your erudite analysis.”

Greg went rigid in an effort not to snap back. There was something forlorn and intentional in the way Mycroft stood, looking like a rumpled professor in his posh trousers and untucked shirt, his gingery curls tucked neatly behind his ears. Greg felt his stomach churn— _it’s been one night; get a grip_ , he thought—but forced himself to stay still, to exude carelessness while he sprawled across the cooling sheets.

“Your loss,” Greg said, and rolled over to shake a fag out of the soft pack on the bedside table, yanking open the drawer to search out a pack of matches. He rummaged through it, hiding the disappointment he was sure was etched into his features. There was a soft _snick_ by his ear.

The flame at the end of Myc’s lighter mirrored the solemn blue of his eyes, the little light wavering back and forth in his shaking hand. Greg looked at him for a long moment and then wrapped his hands around Myc’s gently, squeezing once in forgiveness, and leaned in to light his cigarette. He took a deep drag while Myc pocketed the lighter and blew the flume of smoke carefully away from him.

“I _am_ sorry, Greg,” Myc said softly.

Greg nodded, pulling the discarded sheet up around his abdomen.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

Myc started to shake his head then hesitated and Greg felt a flash of hope. But when Myc opened his mouth, he was cut off by the buzzing noise again. Myc fished his pager out of his trouser pocket, frowned at the display screen, and shut it off.  When he looked back up, his face was set.

“Perhaps another day,” he said leaning in to kiss Greg, the touch of his mouth sweet and warm and full of longing. It even tasted like goodbye.

 

 

_London—September, 2000_

Though Greg had tipped Mycroft off balance, he recovered quickly, adjusting his ( _heavier_ ) weight so he stayed upright. He yanked his hand from Greg’s and skimmed it over his ( _thinner, duller_ ) hair.

“I know who you are, Sergeant,” Mycroft said. “That’s why I am here.”

Greg’s mouth twitched.

“Is it?”

Mycroft’s cheeks pinkened, just a little.

“I have a proposition for you,” he said and then rolled his eyes when Greg broke into a full grin.

“Do you?”

“The young man you just met—”

“Your brother.”

Mycroft sighed.

“Do you ever get any investigating done, Sergeant Lestrade, or do you just provide your own commentary until the dull ones confess out of boredom?”

“Are you confessing?” Greg kept his tone amused, casual, and Mycroft’s face darkened.

He jolted forward, quick and dangerous and elegant as a swan. “I don’t remember you finding me _dull_ when we—”

But Mycroft broke off and looked away, a complicated mix of emotions twisting his face. Greg hesitated, then reached out and put a hand on his sleeve and Mycroft went blank, his mask dropped neatly back into place.

“Your brother?” Greg prompted.

Mycroft cleared his throat politely.

“An addict. Clearly.” He looked at Greg as if expecting him to interrupt again. Greg stayed still, willing himself to observe everything. There was a hairline fissure in Mycroft’s tough outer shell, and Greg could practically see fear and exhaustion escaping through the crack like pressurised steam. “He’s quite bright when he has a clear focus—when he’s not _high._ I need something to distract him.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” Greg asked.

“Did he ask about your wife?”

Greg’s stomach turned over once. In the strangeness of the evening he’d almost forgotten about Amanda. This would mark the third night this week he’d be late getting home and it was only Thursday.

“Just asked how long I’d been with her.”

“And from that he likely deduced the outcome of that relationship. You’ll be maintaining separate residences by mid-year next, thanks in no small part to her adulterous ways but secretly you’ll be guilty yet pleased as you’ve indulged in same-sex fantasies during intimate acts with your spouse much more frequently of late.” Mycroft smiled his shark-smile. “So, you see, Sergeant, it runs in the family.”

Greg swallowed down his anger. It had a sweet note of amazement to it, which was the only thing keeping him from adding a decidedly rugged tilt to Mycroft’s nose.

“What are you proposing, then?” Greg asked.

“A job,” he replied quickly. “Non-paying, of course.  He’ll be quite useful—you’ll make detective within a year—”

“Not a chance.”

Mycroft opened his mouth but Greg held up a hand.

“I won’t risk it, Mycroft. And you’ve no right to ask.”

At that, Mycroft deflated, his chest bowing in exhaustion and defeat.

“I know,” he said. “But I don’t know how else I’m going to keep him alive, Greg. I am out of options.”

“Have you—”

“I have. I promise you, whatever you’re going to suggest, I’ve tried it.”

Greg looked down at the hand clutching the umbrella. He watched the way Mycroft’s palm worried the handle, his knucklebones blue-white where the skin stretched over them.

“Maybe I could make some calls,” he said quietly.

Mycroft’s sigh was almost too quiet for Greg to hear.

“I can’t promise anything,” he added quickly. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said simply. It was the most human he’d sounded all night.

“You’re in my debt now, you know,” Greg said, the corners of his mouth lifting.

“Well.” Mycroft’s answering smile was a thing of beauty. “I look forward to paying it off. Somehow.”

 

 

_Leicester—April, 1991._

The club was so crowded there were people standing on high bar tables just to escape the crush of bodies on the dance floor. The press and slide of hands against his back was oppressive rather than seductive and more than once, he had to push away a slippery body when it stumbled into his. Oddly, there were fewer people around the bar _—Must be this song_ , he thought while he felt his body sway to the beat, almost against his will—and he wedged himself easily between a twitchy, heavily made-up boy and a short, blonde man _—practically a boy, medical student, unyielding posture—_ who was watching the crowd with hungry awe.

He caught the bartender’s eye and mimed an order, smiling when he got back a short glass of rum instead of a tall glass of rye. No matter; nothing could ruin this night. He’d be crushed soon enough by the weight of too much coursework, by the burden of being the eldest, the smartest, the most responsible. He was already unravelling under the pressure of caring too much for someone who didn’t care enough about himself. But tonight, it was all about the music and, with any luck _—_

_There_. Across the way. A man with an impossible fringe and warm brown eyes. Grinning. Beckoning. Tonight there were no little brothers or disapproving fathers. Just this drink, this song.

Mycroft Holmes ran a hand through his gingery curls and made his way to the other side of the bar.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for following me down this particular rabbit-hole. I've never tackled Mystrade before so if I've made a mess of the thing, please be gentle. This was my vision for how these two find their way back to one another.
> 
> Also, thank you so much for reading! Your thoughts and comments are always welcomed, often cried over, 100% squeed at, lovingly stroked, and stored away for reading when I am having a gloomy, anxious, coffee-free day.
> 
> If you want to hang out on Tumblr, my name's the same. Come say hi!


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